Much of the article focuses on nanoscale technology. Vicki Colvin on buckyballs: "We expected them to be inert. They're not." So dumping buckyballs is a bad idea. Stanley Williams throws in a bit of hyperbole on nanoscale quantum effects: "Quantum mechanics is magic." So there are lots of new properties waiting to be discovered and used.

The article dismisses gray goo, with another quote from Stanley Williams and a mention of Richard Smalley. But they don't let that spill over into a dismissal of molecular manufacturing. That is treated as more or less mainstream, with reference to "expectation of cheap, low-polluting mass manufacturing", and questions such as: "How will individual privacy be protected from surveillance nanosensors? How will inexpensive mass manufacture of nanomaterials change the workforce? How will nanotechnology-related businesses affect local and global economies?"

There's a good quote from Eric Drexler: "Through the quirks of politics, the mainstream has rejected the original goal. We are raising a generation of researchers who have been told that molecular manufacturing will threaten their careers."

CRN, of course, believes that failing to acknowledge and study molecular manufacturing will threaten a lot more than careers. It's very good to see molecular manufacturing being treated as it should be: a prosaic but important technical possibility with lots of big implications.